“I apologize, sir,” said DC al-Fasi reaching out a hand to awaken her constable.
“Never mind, detective. He’ll awaken soon enough.” He looked at her. “We have one last task before sending you all out to make this arrest. It will be necessary for you understand the case we’ve prepared against this individual.”
“Why, sir?”
“Unless you understand the evidence, you may be reluctant to carry out the arrest.”
She looked a bit impatient. “Reluctant or not, superintendent, we’ll do our job,” she replied off-handedly as she reached out and jabbed Milburn, barely getting his eyelids to crack open. “Who is the bloke?” she asked in the midst of a barely stifled yawn of her own.
“Chief Constable Crowe.”
Milburn almost slid out of his chair. Like a jack-in-the-box he jumped back to an upright seated position. “Blimey,” he said. He looked at DC al-Fasi who was looking back with very wide eyes, upraised dark brows, and an open mouth.
She faced Matheson, her eyes still wide, all thoughts of sleep banished. “We’d best see that evidence, then.”
Matheson pointed at the wall he was facing. “If you’ll turn your chairs about.” Except for Shad, we turned our chairs around. Shad simply jumped up on the back of his chair and faced the image of the Biograph Theater. The superintendent said to the toilet door, “Very well, Parker.”
The image of the Biograph faded and was replaced by Alicia Pelletier’s article on the Oak Meadow Golf Club banquet.
“Chief Constable Crowe was scheduled to be at the special golf tourney in Starcross on the day Flanagan died,” said Parker. “Instead he was registered under a false name at the Royal Clarence Hotel. Did you know the Clarence was England’s first hotel?”
“The witnesses, Parker,” Matheson urged.
The image switched to a security video of two fellows behind a counter facing a bewhiskered fellow in civilian clothes, a large suitcase at his feet.
“Desk clerk and office manager at the Clarence, sir. Chief Crowe and Ms. Thule have been meeting there once or twice a week since last July. The hotel staff pretend they don’t recognize him behind that phony beard, but they all know who it is.”
“The customer’s always right,” said Shad.
“Go on, Parker,” I urged.
“Yes. Well, they check in, go up to their room, have a wee drop, get naked, put on some erotica, and then—”
“Yes,” Matheson said with a pained expression on his face. “As tantalizing as this is—thank you for that mental image, Parker—that is not illegal.” He waved a hand toward the image. “Besides, where’s the mistress in this shot?”
“On the day Flanagan died, Chief Crowe checked into the Clarence alone. The hotel clerk says the chief appeared to have been drinking rather heavily.”
I glanced at DC al-Fasi. We had her attention as well as her constable’s. A new image appeared on the wall, that of the Clarence’s north side. “This is from surveillance taken from Saint Martin’s across from Dingles Berry Farm store on Catherine,” continued Parker. “This was an in-house camera not visible from the street or the hotel. This window is Chief Crowe’s room that day.” The image centered on a third floor window of the hotel and zoomed in. Despite the blustery cold winds that day, the window to that room was open at the bottom. The curtains weren’t completely drawn; a shadowy figure was noticeable between them. Then came Pilot Officer Darcy Flanagan swooping in and thumping into the side of the casement, somehow landing upright on the ledge followed by some severe staggering. Flanagan appeared to be laughing uproariously.
“That bird’s pissed,” declared Milburn.
“Is there audio on this?” asked al-Fasi.
The sound increased along with a great deal of wind and background noise. When Parker suppressed the background, we could hear Flanagan laughing. He was looking in the window, pointing with his wing. “Wot’s this then!” we heard him holler, another raucous laugh, then there was a poomf sound, and the pigeon was gone. The window quickly closed.
“The surveillance video doesn’t cover Martins Lane below where Flanagan landed,” said Parker. “The camera that covered Martins Lane had been tampered with.” He ran the Dingles Berry Farm video again from when Flanagan pointed with his wing and laughed at the person on the other side of the window. In slow motion we saw a small puff of escaped gas, and Flanagan falling straight back from the window for only a couple of frames, a smeared red object against his right side.
“Sharissa Thule was below the window to collect the corpse and the flexible baton load,” said Parker. “We have no video, but we do have Sharissa Thule.”
The image changed suddenly to the interior of Room 914. On one side of the table were Matheson and I. Shad squatted on the table’s end. Seated on the other side was Sharissa Thule.
“Ray was obsessed with bird bios,” said Sharissa. “He was convinced the birds were seeking him out, ridiculing him, trying to do him harm. ‘They’re out to get me, Shariss,’ he’d tell me. This one pigeon bio somehow found out about the trysts Ray and I were having at the Clarence. No matter what room we were in, that bird would be outside the window, marching around, laughing, and calling in to us. It was embarrassing.”
“Go on,” prompted my image.
“Ray tried to grab that bird a number of times, but he was just too fast. Smelled of whisky, too. Horrible thing. I said to Ray, why don’t we stay someplace else? That’d make sense, wouldn’t it? But, no. No bloody amdroid was going to make Ray Crowe give up everything to the damned bios. Ray was once on the Honors List, you know. Then that awards ceremony happened—that gorilla thing?”
“Yes,” said Matheson. “DI Jaggers and I were there. And ... uh ... DC Parker.”
She frowned at me, then Shad, then cocked her head toward the loo. Shad and I nodded and she shrugged. “Well, anyway, you know just what I mean. Getting embarrassed like that knocked Ray off center.” She pointed at her right temple. “In the head Ray went a bit dotty. Then, after what that bird said...”
“What was that?” Shad’s image prodded.
“That bloody rude pigeon said he heard all about us down in the pubs. Ray and me! The whole hotel staff was talking all over the bleeding city!” Sharissa Thule was looking a bit dotty herself. “All those pigeons, hotel staff, pub crawlers, who knew who else was talking? Bloody damned amdroids! I teach third form! What about my reputation?” She looked down and her hands were wringing the life out of a pink tissue. She took a deep breath and released it in a ragged sob. “He wasn’t dead, you know.”
“Who wasn’t dead?” Shad’s image asked.
“Flanagan. The pigeon bio. When I picked the bird up to put him in the tote he says, “What’s all this then?” and he laughed. Sort of choking, but he laughed. I wanted to rush him to hospital, call the medimechs—something. But Ray, he was right beside me in a minute. I held the bag out to him and said, ‘He’s still alive.’ Ray looks in the tote and the bird looks Ray right in the eye and says, ‘Darcy Flanagan is dead.’ Just like that. Darcy Flanagan is dead.”
She took another tissue, blew her nose, and slumped forward on her elbows. “Ray, he looks around, makes sure no one’s about, reaches into the tote, wraps his big hands around the bird, and squeezes. Not long. Only a little squeeze and the bird was gone.”